The Poet and the Pragmatist
by Liisa Vatanen
Summary: One-shot. After the events on Virmire lead to the loss of one of her crew, Shepard thinks it ought to have been her. Ashley is there to tell her otherwise. FemShep x Ashley.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Mass Effect. Nor do I own any of Walt Whitman's works, though I sorely wish I did.

* * *

**The Poet and the Pragmatist**

"It should've been me."

Ashley had said those very words only minutes ago in the briefing room. Now Shepard found herself saying them, but to no one in particular. She sat on the end of her bed, her head in her hands. She'd made her choice, and now she was going to have to deal with the guilt, the grief; the consequences of that choice. Whichever way she decided, someone would have died. There was no escaping it. But she knew it should have been her. She was the commander, the one in charge, and she'd allowed the death of one of her crew to save her own sorry ass. What right did she have to dictate who lived and who died? Why should she have let someone else pay the price for her mission, her martyrdom? She was responsible for every single person on her ship, and she should have been responsible for making sure every single person got off the planet alive, even if it meant at the cost of her own life. She was sure that even in her absence her squad could chase down Saren and put a bullet through his head and end his heretical madness. They could do anything she could do, and she had the utmost faith in them all. They didn't really need her. She was simply there to hold their hands and tell them what to do.

"It should've been me!"

With a swiftness that would put even the most agile biotic to shame, she snatched up the tumbler sitting next to the carafe of whisky on her desk and flung it at the wall. She channelled all of her rage into that throw, and yet felt nothing. A rogue shard ricocheted off the fibreglass wall and sliced her cheek, and she felt not even a scrap of penance. Throwing things and getting angry wasn't going to bring Kaidan back. Killing Saren wouldn't even do that.

Tears purged down her cheeks despite her best efforts to keep them at bay, mixing with the blood slowly oozing from her cut and forming rivulets coloured crimson. He would have been just outside her quarters; doing whatever the hell it was he did. She'd never really paid attention. Whenever she'd wander over to him he'd always turn around with a smile so kind and eyes so full with affection that sometimes she deeply wished she could love him.

The hiss of the automatic door behind her wrenched her from her reverie, and she could only curse herself for not setting it to lock so she could be left alone. It was probably one of the petty officers seeking her signature for something or to inform her that someone was arguing with someone else and she was to be the mediator.

"Skipper…" Ashley was the only one who ever referred to her by that title, no matter how many times she had insisted she call her by her real name, Helena. The gentle, though faintly husky voice was unmistakably hers. When her commander didn't turn around and address her, or even acknowledge her presence, she said, "… Helena."

Shepard's hand rose from her side to her face, where she hastily wiped away the bloody and teary mess coating her cheeks. She didn't turn around to meet Ashley's anxious gaze. It didn't take a genius to know the commander had been crying, and it was the first time in the four months she'd been aboard the Normandy and in the company of the level-headed woman that she'd seen a breach in her stoic visage. That didn't mean she'd never seen any emotion from Shepard, though. She was emotional in battle, but it was a different sort of emotion; it was a strength that inspired her companions and raised morale.

"What is it, Chief?" Ashley could hear the tears in her voice. The voice that could either scare someone shitless or make them feel as if they were the most important person in the entire galaxy.

"I… I just wanted to check you were okay," she said, the gentle shuffle of her boots on the floor alerting Shepard to the fact she'd moved closer. "Jones said he heard something smash- wanted me to check it out."

"I'm fine, Chief," Shepard said, still unwilling to turn around. Her eyes were shut tightly, and she was loathed to say anything else because the tears would surely come again. "I dropped a glass; no big."

Ashley looked down at the floor where a sprinkling of shards made for a hazardous barefoot stroll. She then caught sight of the trace whisky on the wall, obviously the remnants of what had been in the glass before it was destroyed. "Dropped it, huh?"

"Yep." Shepard clenched her fists by her sides. She would not cry, not now, not in front of her subordinate. She was supposed to be the strong one. "If you don't mind, chief… I've got… lots of work to do."

She felt a hand snake around her wrist and pull her around with a strength she didn't know Ashley was capable of. She found herself looking into the brunette's defiant brown eyes, which then settled on the cut she'd inadvertently inflicted upon herself. "You're bleeding, skipper." She carefully reached up to touch it, causing Shepard to wince. It wasn't deep, but it still stung like a bitch. "Let me sort it out for you," she said. When Shepard opened her mouth to protest, Ashley gave her the gentlest stern look she'd ever seen and said, "That's an order."

With a faint lopsided smile, Shepard moved to sit down on the bed while Ashley hunted around her room for a first aid kit. Each station had been provided with one – some sort of Alliance requirement – and so there would definitely be one in there somewhere. God only knew where Shepard had hidden it. "Under the bed."

Ashley stooped, pausing in a crouch before she shifted to her knees, and raised an eyebrow at the auburn-haired commander. "I'm not gonna find any dirty underwear under here, am I?"

Shepard laughed, which had been the reaction the chief had been hoping for. "No. I'm a woman of exceedingly good hygiene. There might be some monsters under there, though. You'd better suit up before you go in."

"I'm highly trained in hand-to-hand combat, remember?" Ashley grinned. "I'm sure I'll manage." She disappeared under for a few moments before returning, first aid box in hand. "Piece of cake." She set it down on the desk, sifting through the contents and fishing out some antiseptic wipes. "Hold still," she said, tilting Shepard's head back gently, "this might sting a little." She dabbed tentatively at the cut and wiped away any blood from the skin surrounding, grinning when the commander expressed her pain in the form of a hushed grunt. "_We feel the long pulsation—ebb and flow of endless motion;  
The tones of unseen mystery—the vague and vast suggestions of the briny  
world—the liquid-flowing syllables,  
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,  
The boundless vista, and the horizon far and dim, are all here,  
And this is Ocean's poem_."

"Whitman?" asked Shepard, rather impressed with Ashley's ability to recite poetry so fluently from memory.

The brunette nodded, scrunching up the bloodied wipe and then moving back to the first aid kit again, this time coming back holding a small roll of surgical tape. The wound wasn't so deep that it needed proper dressing. "I always think it perfectly describes life on the Normandy – except maybe without the creaking.

"_Two Rivulets side by side,  
Two blended, parallel, strolling tides,  
Companions, travellers, gossiping as they journey._"

Shepard smiled, causing Ashley to miss where she was about to apply to surgical tape. "That's us."

With fingertips that were surprisingly soft given her profession, the chief steadied the flesh of Shepard's cheek so when she smiled she wouldn't shift the cut again. "Yep." She stuck three vertical strips of tape onto the horizontal wound so that it would remain in place and wouldn't reopen when it began to scab over. She stood back, tipping her head to one side as she admired her handiwork. "You'll have another scar to add to your collection." She put the remainder of the roll of tape back into the box, closed it up, and slid it back underneath Shepard's bed. "Why did you… why did you choose me over the el-tee?"

Shepard's jaw stiffened. "I have my reasons."

"He was a superior officer," Ashley said, "he was… I don't know… more valuable, I guess. I'm just a- I'm just a soldier, ma'am. I don't have any special biotic abilities like he did."

The commander, who had been staring at the pieces of broken glass on the floor, snapped her head around to glare at Ashley. "How can you say that?" she asked, angrier than she'd initially intended. "There isn't a single person in my crew that is more valuable than anyone else," she argued. "You are as skilled as Lieutenant Alenko was, and you are as valued a part of this team as he was. So don't you _ever_ think that you should come below anyone else on a priority list. I had to make a choice, and my choice was you, chief. Hell, I should have put both of your lives ahead of mine. I should've gone down with that research facility, and you and Kaidan should've made it off that planet alive."

"No, commander," Ashley shook her head solemnly. "We _need_ you. More than you can ever know. You're gonna be the one to stop Saren and the geth, you're gonna be the one to save the galaxy, and I know you are. You're our commanding officer, and you're the best we're ever gonna get. I couldn't- I- well, I couldn't imagine anyone else taking your place. You'd be a damn hard act to follow."

A small smile crept onto Shepard's face for a moment. "Sounds like you expect me to die at some point during this bastard mission."

Ashley furrowed her brow and all of a sudden looked something between sad and despaired. "I- uh, wasn't- I didn't, uh…" she averted her gaze. "I didn't mean it like that, commander. Sorry if it sounded that way."

"Don't apologise, chief," said Shepard. "I was joking; badly. Clearly my sense of humour is worse than Joker's. I don't plan on getting KIA'd anytime soon."

The chief seemed to relax a bit, then. "Good, 'cause if you did, I'd have to come and kick your ass."

Shepard couldn't help but laugh at that. She shot the younger woman a playful smirk. "I'd like to see you try."

"Don't underestimate me, commander," Ashley retorted, returning her with her own roguish grin. "I can give as good as I get." She realised after she'd said it, that that sentence held more connotations than she thought. It had sounded a lot better in her head. Shepard's smile merely broadened, evidently unfazed by it. It was at that point a silence seemed to fall between them, but this silence was tinged with an unspoken tension. It wasn't awkward, but it was… well, indescribable. "Skipper," she didn't dare look directly at her. What she was about to say made her feel out of her depth; discomfited. She may have been skilled with a gun but when it came to the more personal side of things, she found it difficult to say what she wanted to say without screwing up. "If you… if you ever wanna talk, or anything, I'm here for you, okay? I may not be the best when it comes to words, but I _am_ a good listener. And, well, you've been there for me… now I want to be here for you, because you- well, you mean a lot to me, so, yeah." She looked somewhat sheepish as a tinge of red coloured her cheeks and she made briskly for the door, keeping her head down as she did so. Unfortunately, no poetry could have conveyed _that_ for her.

"Wait, Ash." Shepard clasped onto Ashley's wrist to stop her from progressing any further. There was a sense of nervousness discernible in her voice as she rose – somewhat shakily – to her feet so that she was looking directly into the chief's eyes. The hand that had been holding onto her wrist was now holding her hand. "Stay. Here… with me."

"I…" the blush on her cheeks remained, but with a cheeky grin she raised an eyebrow. "Is… that an order, ma'am?"

Shepard chuckled, relinquishing the air of tension swirling about her, "on the double."

"Roger that."

Ashley closed the gap between them, cupping Shepard's face in her hands and kissing her softly. She would gladly stay with her forever, order or no.

* * *

As Ashley laid watching Shepard sleep, listening to her gentle breathing and tracing the scars on her back with her forefinger, she thought of a passage from a poem that would perfectly describe that magnificently brave woman.

_O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you;  
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,  
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me._

That electric fire was no longer subtle, and it was no longer little known.


End file.
